IRELAND, July 17, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A member of the European Parliament has accused her government of not doing enough to defend the Irish Constitution against the European Commission’s dictatorial attacks in the wake of a European Commission decision to approve funding for research on ‘spare embryos’ from IVF treatments. Connacht/Ulster MEP, Dana Rosemary Scallon protested that, “This flies in the face of democracy and reduces Ireland’s Constitution to nothing other than a reference book. Europe’s appointed Commissioners have approved this controversial destructive research funding without public debate and without the opportunity of Parliamentary response or debate from either Dáil Éireann or the European Parliament who are now in recess. The EU Commission proposal for this destructive research is against the legal and Constitutional position of Ireland and a number of Member States. It also ignores the deep division in the European Parliament and Member States on this issue including the fact that this is an uncertain and unproven use of public money.”
The Commission has set the end of this year as the deadline for introducing the rules legalizing the research which are now only allowed in five countries. Earlier this year MEPs voted against research on embryonic stem cells. See Mayo News: https://www.mayonews.ie/current/county.tmpl?value1=326744074341877